


Tinker Tinker, Little Stark

by Melethril



Series: Manual Labor [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Engineer Tony Stark, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melethril/pseuds/Melethril
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Tony get out of Siberia?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tinker Tinker, Little Stark

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still trying to get my head straight after CA:CW.  
> That movie broke my heart. There is no bashing in this; Tony is hurt though, and I think he is allowed to be angry. More than that, he's just exhausted.

When Tony woke up, he suppressed a groan. After the fight, his body and mind had given out ( _For seconds? Hours? Days?)_. He would not have minded never waking up again.

_Yes._

_I’m sorry, Tony. He is my friend._

_You did that when you signed._

_Sergeant Barnes?_

He hated his memory, hated, hated, hated. He had let himself to black out because of it. He had known his brain would come back online as soon as he opened his eyes. It always did. The booze helped a little bit, managed to slow his mind enough for the rest of him to keep up.

FRIDAY ( _his dear little girl; he loved her as much as JARVIS, but she was so young and the engineer could not help but miss the partner he had had in JARVIS. Still, he would not exchange her for the world_ ) was offline, and it was not a good idea to bring her back online here in the cold of Sibiria. She was untraceable, yes, but Tony did not want Vision to come here. God only knew what would happen if the non-human broke the Accords and somebody (Ross) found out about it. Tony did not dare to think about the possible consequences. Besides, somebody had to stay with Rhodey ( _sorry, Rhodey, I’m so sorry. I’m coming home, Rhodey, promise. I’ll be there when you wake up. I’ll fix this [Really, Stark?], I swear to God. Don’t hate me [my fault, shouldn’t have created War Machine, shouldn’t have suggested him as an Avenger], please!_ ), Natasha had probably disappeared ( _Why did her choice hurt so much? Had she known? She must have known_ ), and everybody else was already gone.

So, Tony did what he had done all his life: he built things and saved himself.

Every cell in his body seemed to hurt. As gingerly as possible (it felt like his body was on fire), he removed piece by piece of his dead suit. He wanted to rip the thing from his body, but he was just so damn tired, hurt and he simply did not have the strength left. He tore at the suit whenever it was too banged up to loosen automatically. He ripped the gauntlets from his arms to better work on the suit and threw them away. He could still feel Steve’s and Barnes’ blows; like a never-ending echo. After what felt like hours later, he crawled out of the scraps of alloy and wires that made Iron Man. He was black and blue, but he refused to look. If he did, he would not be able to move, but he had to.

He was Tony freaking Stark!

He would never just roll over and wait for the rescue. That was not part of his code. He climbed back into the chambers where he had become witness of his personal nightmare, faced his greatest betrayal (or at least sharing first place with Obediah), and where his mind had finally, _finally_ short-circuited (he had not thought. He had just acted after watching the tape, and wasn’t it a blast that, even deep inside, he was as ugly and cold-blooded as people accused him of being?). He had to climb up and down five times to get every piece of armor down, and Tony was not sure whether it hurt more or less every time he did it. He could not stop the sobs of exhaustion and hisses of pain that escaped him more than once. He wondered if the bruises would ever heal; it felt like his muscles could never recover from the strain they were under. Worse even was that he could not help but expect a helping hand every time he slipped, every time he had to pull his body up either to reach his armor or because he fell. Despite his treacherous hopes, he always ended up on the ground because there was nobody there to catch him.

No Yinsen, no Rhodey, no Vision, no Natasha, no Clint, no Steve, no Bruce.

He was alone. He hated being alone; yet, here he was. No matter how much he told himself that this was by choice (Vision would come, so would Bruce and Rhodey if they could; FRIDAY would keep him company until then), he still felt the pain like somebody removed the arc reactor from his chest ( _Steve, no, please. Obediah, why?_ ).

The last days and the tape continued to play on a loop in his head: every miniscule reaction, every grunt, every bruise, every hateful or contemptuous word and every mistake.

Oh, he still believed in the Accords; more than ever before, but he had not explained himself well, had not told Wanda that she was not an American citizen and that people were out for her blood and that keeping her at the compound was not meant to protect the world from her but the other way around. He had not been able to explain to Steve why the Accords were necessary. He had not explained at the airport that, not only were they breaking the law, but that they were also in mortal danger if he did not bring them in within the next 36 hours. Steve could only dodge so many bullets and Hawkeye even less.

Oh God, Laura Barton (the lady who had seen how close he was to losing it and sent him to one of the few people who could help)!

He had to get home, had to protect her and the kids from Ross and the Accords. They would not be used as leverage!

Determinedly, he faced the dead super soldiers inside of their tanks.

Super soldiers and super spies.

His life began and would probably end with them.

Steve Rogers (the unreachable rival; his father’s friend, moral compass and surrogate son).

Aunt Peggy (gentle, strong Peggy who had been ahead of her time and who had, more than Howard, shown him what it meant to be a futurist)

The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (the monster who had killed his parents, and the innocent man who had no choice in the matter combined in an unbearable mix)

Natasha Romanoff (he had truly thought she stood behind him, but he should have known better; Steve just had that charisma, which drew people’s loyalty [ _Howard had been one of the first and even Tony had not been able to resist_ ]; Tony should have expected the double-cross, should have anticipated that in his plans)

Steve again (his colleague, his team leader, his friend… his adversary and the man who had looked at him and smiled for two years while being completely aware that Tony’s parents had been murdered but did not bother telling him about it while he had the _gall_ to chew out Tony for keeping secrets)

Nick Fury (It was funny, really, a hoot. He had let them in, both Steve and Natasha, but not Fury. He had not trusted the man [V _ague memories of the big, scary man with one eye that saw far too much sitting in the living room with Howard and his mother who had removed little Anthony from the room whenever he accidentally entered the room_ ], but Fury had never kept it a secret that he had secrets, that he lived and breathed the grey side of the hero business. He had been the one to pick him up when he had fallen apart during the Ultron fiasco. Had he known too? Probably, but that did not hurt nearly as much as Steve’s secrecy. The thought still hurt more than Tony would have thought, though.)

As he ripped open the old control panels, he forced himself to focus. He focused on the things that came to him as easy as breathing: electronics and mechanics (detaching wires, turning screws, tightening, loosening, welding, bending, combining). It had been his form of meditation since the age of five. This was his world, his sanctuary.

Tony hardly noticed when his fingers started to bleed. He had no heavy tools at his disposal, only his tiny toolkit. After all, he had been so sure that he had come here to help; he had wanted to help Steve, and he had _known_ Steve had his back, that, if he got hurt, the super soldier would help him in return. Tony had not needed more than the toolkit, which was great for precise work and maintenance but useless when it came to actual repairs. To be honest, he was disgusted with his own gullibility, but in the end, he knew how to improvise and work with what he had.

He felt his fingernails crack as he ripped open a particularly rusted panel. Even the callouses on his hands could not prevent the blisters. (He never failed to see the irony that Steve Rogers, the supporter of the ‘little man’, had the hands of a man who had never performed any manual labor. Of course, the healing factor was responsible for that, but it was ironic nevertheless that the hands of the suave, heartless businessman looked similar to that of metal and construction workers while Steve’s looked entirely unused).

He rewired the fried parts of his suits with the wires he found in the panels and, once again, repaired the arc reactor.

It felt a little bit like putting together the pieces of his shattered heart.

He was hungry, thirsty, desperate and exhausted. He felt ancient, like butter that was spread too thin. Yet, he managed despite trembling fingers due to hypoglycemia, despite bone-deep wariness. Sheer stubbornness kept him on his feet.

Tony was not sure how long he worked. He certainly did not sleep. He had to go home; he would not let Rhodey wake up alone. He would be there when the doctors gave their prognosis. After all, Rhodey had sat through his darkest hours; had saved him more than once. It was time to return the favor.

Incessantly, the billionaire continued with his tasks: he welded, hammered, cursed, bent, connected, twisted, repaired and tested until his suit was functional using pieces of equipment that had kept these super soldiers alive for more than seventy years; only to be killed in their sleep.

He would never forget these faces; he would dream about them. They had been killers, and would have been a greater menace than even the Winter Soldier, but they had never been a threat. As a result of that, he felt sorry for their demise, for using their coffins for his own survival. It seemed disrespectful. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes had come here to save the world (or at least a part of it), but all they had managed was destroy Tony’s who too had thought he could play hero once more.

His anger was gone. The work had driven it away.

He was tired of it all: the betrayals, the pain, the doubt, the guilt… He wished he could just disappear, walk away, say ‘so long, folks’ and never pick up the armor again. Unfortunately, even if he decided to do that, he would still end up on the ground and alone with a knife in his back, and Tony knew that he was still needed. He did not do the things he did for gratitude or to be loved (though by God, he had basked in the positive limelight after the New York invasion)… He did the things he did to protect the world’s future (something was still coming, and somebody had to be ready for it), and that was the reason why he picked himself up. Every. Single. Time.

_“Boss, are you okay?”_ The mild panic in FRIDAY’s voice had Tony smile ruefully (how come his AIs seemed to gain the ability to worry about him within six months of their introduction? JARVIS and the bots always did that too) and he apologized before he let her know their destination.

With a lot less grace than usual, Iron Man shot into the sky.

After all, without the man the armor was just a piece of metal.

**Author's Note:**

> This series might be extended or not; I don't know yet. I love Engineer!Tony, and I would like to present different situations where we see that in all its glory. If you are interested, let me know.
> 
> I really want to finish the Rhodey series and Knowledge Comes With a Price, but I still need to digest the movie. I apologize.


End file.
